Flipkart launches children’s store ‘Li’l Stars’

India’s largest ecommerce company Flipkart has marked children as a “high focus” category in the fashion segment for the coming year and has announced the launch of ‘Flipkart Li’l Stars’ , a store dedicated to children on its platform.

Not your ordinary shop for baby

Sales volumes of children’s clothing and accessories reportedly grew more than three times in the past year, contributing more than 10 per cent to Flipkart’s overall fashion business. They’re expected to increase five-fold in the year ahead.

“The growing exposure of both parents and children towards global fashion trends and the rising income levels of the Indian working class are one of the key contributing factors towards the growth of the kids’ category,” Rishi Vasudev, vice president fashion, Flipkart, told The Economic Times. “Toys form the most popular vertical in this category, closely followed by kids fashion and baby care,” he added.

This year, child-focussed international brands such as The Children’s Place and Poney have entered the Indian market. Spanish fashion apparel brand Pepe Jeans launched a kids’ wear segment in India and plans to open 10 exclusive stores in this category.

“Kidswear is a category which we see huge opportunities in, but scalability and pricing mismatches have so far prevented large-scale branding in the segment in India,” J Suresh, Managing Director & CEO of Arvind Lifestyle Brands Ltd who has partnered with The Children’s Place for Indian foray, told Indiaretailing.

Technopak reveals that Indian apparel market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nine percent, from USD 41 billion in 2013 to USD102 billion in 2023. In 2013, the kidswear segment, at USD 8.3 billion, alone contributed 20 percent of India’s entire apparel market. Given its higher growth rate, this share is expected to increase to 22 percent by 2023.